How to earn Bitcoin by using BTCPay Server

Don't buy bitcoin - earn it. Why? It's better for your privacy. You're not sharing data with sketchy custodians nor trusting third-parties with your hard-earned funds. Your money, your rules.

By getting paid in BTC, you'll learn to appreciate the true power of self-sovereignty and the freedom that Bitcoin brings.

People getting paid in BTC, have no other choice than to spend it from time to time, helping other merchants in the ecosystem stack sats, organically distributing sats all over the world.

While there are many ways in which you can accumulate bitcoin, in this article, we will focus on showing you how to achieve that by using BTCPay Server.

# Create Bitcoin invoices

This one isn't rocket science. The quickest and easiest way to earn Bitcoin is to start accepting it for the products or services you offer. Freelancers, small business owners, musicians, and many others use a newly-developed feature called payment requests and start (opens new window) stacking sats with no hassle.

Create custom invoices which can be shared with customers by sending a link to the payment request. When the customer opens the link, they will see an invoice which can be customized to suit your business needs.

When payment is made, the payment request uses the exchange rate at the time of payment, which eliminates the volatility risk and allows your clients to pay at their convenience without having to negotiate or verify exchange rates with you at the time of payment.

# Accepting Bitcoin in an online store

Online business owners, can start accepting Bitcoin on-chain or over the Lightning Network in no time. We have a few plugins for e-commerce platforms that allow quick integration of BTCPay instances into an online store.

Plugins are available for the following platforms:

We plan to make more plugins for other platforms depending on community demand. The video below shows how to connect BTCPay with a WooCommerce store.

Don't have an online store? Don't have the technical knowledge to create one? Willing to dedicate a few hours to learn a new skill?

If the answer is yes I have good news for you, our free 18-video series will teach you to build an e-commerce store from scratch and start accepting Bitcoin, by using free and open-source software.

Technically advanced users can use this guide to deploy WooCommerce store from BTCPay (opens new window) Server and run them on a single virtual machine.

# Accept Bitcoin in retail

Brick and mortar store owners can use a built-in Point of Sale web app. Add products and images, set prices and don’t forget to customize. The app is web-based and can be run on old phones and tablets - no need for specialist hardware

Check out the step by step guide to making a PoS. (opens new window) Larger retailers can use our software and integrate it into their existing terminals, but that will require technical know-how. Once our brand-new API is released, it will be much easier than it is now.

# Accepting Bitcoin Donations

Content creators bloggers or charities can utilize the payment button. The button can easily be created from Store Settings > Pay Button, customized and embedded into an HTML page.

Those who don't have a website, but would like to use BTCPay as a Tippin (opens new window) alternative, can customize the point of sale app and make a donation page. (opens new window)

# Launch a crowdfunding campaign

Crowdfunding is an application which you can launch from BTCPay Server interface that allows you to create a self-hosted funding campaign, similar to Kickstarter or Indiegogo. Unlike traditional crowdfunding platforms, the creator of the campaign is the owner of the platform. Funds go directly to the creator’s wallet without any fees.

Users who prefer the re-occurring model and Patreon alternative can use LibrePatron which is a self-hosted Patreon replacement powered by BTCPay.

# Pay Per Article (Journalists and bloggers)

Journalists, bloggers and media outlets can lock their articles behind a Lightning Network paywall and request micropayments from their readers. If you-re using c-lightning implementation, you can copy the exposed node settings into the Lightning Publisher for WordPress. From there, the content can be locked with a simple shortcode. This plugin only works on WordPress websites.

# Become a payment processor

BTCPay provides an open-source technology stack, which you can use to adjust it to your needs. One often overlooked, yet very powerful feature of BTCPay is the ability of self-hosted server owners to allow people to use their server and receive payments through their node. To open your server to others, you need to go to Server Settings > Policies > Enable user registration.

Using BTCPay to become a payment processor for other users opens a whole new world of possibilities. With help and customizations, you can become next BitPay for your local community.

There are a few third-party hosts (opens new window) using this model.

# Sell BTCPay Hardware devices

BTCPay can be hosted on any machine which meets the minimum requirements. It can even be deployed even on a low-powered device like Rasberry Pi (opens new window). When launched, BTCPay automatically creates a full Bitcoin and Lightning node, which makes it a perfect opportunity for hardware engineers to build and sell all sorts of hardware devices running BTCPay and sell Bitcoin and Lightning nodes in a box. If you're interested in running BTCPay on a Raspberry Pi, check our documentation. (opens new window)

Great examples of BTCPay on hardware devices are Nodl (opens new window), Lightning in a box (opens new window), and Jack Mallers from Zap, has developed a hardware PoS solution for merchants (opens new window), powered by BTCPay Server.

# Host BTCPay Servers in a cloud

Recently, HosBill (opens new window) a popular all-in-one software solutions for hosting providers, integrated BTCPay for over 1000 of their enterprise customers, allowing providers who use their CRM software to accept payments via a self-hosted BTCPay. This means that companies using their software can get paid via BTCPay for hosting services they provide to end-customer.

With BTCPay gaining popularity, hosting providers can create 1-click easy deployments and offer customers hosted BTCPay Servers. One example is LunaNode (opens new window), whose dev team have created an easy BTCPay deployment method.

# Develop and provide BTCPay Services

Developers can build applications and offer services on top of BTCPay. Mastering the software opens up a lot of possibilities for game, wallet, or platform developers. Furthermore, programmers can offer software setup and configuration services and earn Bitcoin by providing premium support to enterprises using BTCPay. Regular users of BTCPay can easily provide support or consulting services to businesses as well. Knowledge is power.

# Stacking sats - the self-sovereign way

BTCPay is a powerful tool that can be lots of things to lots of people. If it does not satisfy your business idea out of the box, it's completely open-source and can be tailored to your needs. There are many ways to earn Bitcoin and you don't have to use BTCPay for that. Explore, share ideas and most importantly learn. Your expertise will be a sought-after asset that nobody can take away from you. Oh, and same goes for Bitcoin.

If you have any other ideas on how one can use BTCPay to earn Bitcoin, let us know on Twitter, (opens new window) we'd love to hear from you.